Tag: Iowa County

The Dodgeville area is badly in need of an off-road paved (asphalt) bike path. Every time I go to Madison, I am envious of all the bike trails they have. Why can’t small towns like Dodgeville and rural areas have some paved bike paths, too? Brigham County Park in rural Dane County has a beautiful new trail. Why not Iowa County?

I’d really like to see the Military Ridge Trail between Dodgeville and Ridgeway paved. Anyone interested in serving on an ad hoc committee with me to make that happen?

There is a 5.1-mile paved trail called the Shake Rag Trail which runs along US Highway 151 between Dodgeville and Mineral Point, but it is far from ideal. First of all, there is no safe way to bike to it from Dodgeville! You can ride through the hospital parking lot to Heritage Lane, head south until you get to Brennan Rd., turn right, but when you get to WI Highway 23, you have to ride along the east shoulder of that busy road with fast-moving vehicles for 0.4 miles to get to the bike path, as shown in the map below.

What a relief! You’ve now reached the paved bike path, and it is off-road!

You now ride 0.7 miles on Chris-Na-Mar Road, and then the off-road bike path starts up again.

Now, you get to ride 1.3 miles on an off-road paved bike path. Yay! But the bike path again abruptly ends at County Road YD. It is not clear what you should do next except maybe turn around?

Persistence pays off, and if you soldier on you’ll find that you can ride 2.1 miles on County Road YD until you reach the off-road bike path again. You’re almost to Mineral Point!

The bike path goes another 0.5 mile until it ends at Shakerag St. in Mineral Point. You’ve traveled a total of 5.1 miles on the Shake Rag Trail, but less than half of it was on a bona fide bike path.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m really glad that the Shake Rag Trail got built. But for any of you who have ridden the crushed rock Military Ridge Trail between Dodgeville and Ridgeway (all off-road), you’ll understand how much nicer Military Ridge Trail would be than the Shake Rag Trail if only it were paved.